50 seat RJ question
 

How do the CRJ 200 and ERJ 145 compare? I’m not interested in who is the best or worst airline, just the actual machines. How do they compare in fuel efficiency, maintenance reliability, load limited issues, age of the fleet, operating cost, etc?

Flew both at expressjet. I prefer the145–more reliable, more automated.

Main downside is the loud flight deck.

The Embraer is waaay better for summer ops. The Air conditioning system is much better.
you’ll bake like a fricking lobster in the CRJ-200 cockpit

ERJ 145 is more capable for sure.

reliability and age is very much a function of the fleet. Overall, I would expect the 145 to outlast the 200.

Wow! I’ve never flown the 200 but I find I absolutely bake in the 145 cockpit in the summer. But that’s largely due to the fact the APU (which drives the packs soooo much better than the engines) are often MELd in the summer.

the CRJ200 cockpit, even with the APU on and feeding the packs, still is like an oven in the summer time.

Never flew a CRJ but in the 145 you can easily get the air conditioning to shoot out ice pellets in the summer.

Correct.

the airplane was designed and built in the jungle.

That would make sense.

Interesting enough, the CRJ despite being built in the great white north was prone to bad gremlins if cold-soaked anywhere near zero F.

Well, yeah, if the APU is working. But the APU seems to fail a lot in the summer... or maybe I’m thinking of APU bleed leaks. In any case, I think I have a working APU for packs about half the time in July and August. There are pilots at my airline that change the way they bid in the summer because of it. There are mechanics at my airline that change the way they bid to reduce their exposure to the 145 because of it. Nobody wants the 145 in the summer. That said, my airline doesn’t fly the 200 so not saying the 200 is worse. If it is, man, that sucks.